Multimedia class 01-12-2012

Today we learned about user centered design.
User centered design focuses on; usability goals, user characteristics, environment, tasks, workflow.
We took notes on the usability goals, user characteristics, environment, tasks and workflow individually going into more detail.

Briefly....
Usability goals: Effective to use, efficent to use, safe to use, have good utility, easy to learn, easy to remember how to use.
User characteristics: Gender, age, disabilities, left/right handed, height.
Environment: Where the product will be used, indoors outdoors, personal use, office use.
Tasks: Tasks they preform and tasks they would like to preform.
Workflow: The stages involved in order to complete the process

User centered design (UCD) should provide answers to:

• What is important to users
• The task users do,the order they do them and the frequency
• Users work environment
• Problems and constraints that affect the user
• Users expectations
• Output required
• How can the design facilitate users to achieve goal

Who are the users?: Users can also be described as stakeholders.
                               They can be considered as any person or organisation who are directly or indirectly
                               with the product.